The United States will spend an additional $10 million to fight Ebola in West Africa, bringing its total investment against the epidemic to more than $100 million.
The new funds, announced Tuesday by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), will support the African Union’s deployment of roughly 100 health workers to support exhausted medical personnel.
{mosads}The money will serve to transport the health workers to Liberia, Guinea, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, where health officials warn the outbreak is spiraling out of control, and to provide supplies.
The move by USAID comes amid complaints that the United States has embraced only small measures to fight Ebola and desperate calls for more help from the ground.
“The U.S. is committed to supporting the African Union’s response to the urgent needs across West Africa as a result of this vicious disease,” said USAID Administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah in a statement.
“We can and will stop this epidemic, but it will take a coordinated effort by the entire global community.”
The Pentagon announced Monday that it would send a 25-bed portable hospital to Liberia to care for sickened healthcare workers.
Patients sick with Ebola are overflowing healthcare facilities across the region. In one Liberian county alone, only 240 beds were available despite a need for more than 1,000, the BBC reported.
The United Nations has said controlling the epidemic will cost at least $600 million and require three or four times the current number of healthcare workers.